At INBOUND, Neil Patel, co-founder at NP Digital, shared a fresh perspective on content marketing, challenging the long-held notion that “content is king.” For B2B fintech marketers, the key takeaway is that content volume alone no longer drives success. With billions of pieces of content published daily, Neil pointed out that 94% of web pages and 59% of social media posts receive zero traffic or engagement. The oversaturation of content, exacerbated by AI, means that producing more can work against marketers – unless it’s engaging.
Neil stressed that content’s effectiveness now depends on engagement rather than sheer volume. For B2B fintech marketers, this means focusing on content that truly resonates with your audience.
Short-form videos, long-form pieces and expert interviews or podcasts generate the highest engagement. Patel shared a sentiment held by several other INBOUND speakers: firms want high-end, highly produced video content, but the data shows that lower-produced content gets more engagement as it appears more authentic.
Neil also highlighted the importance of updating existing content rather than constantly creating new material, noting that top-performing sites like Wikipedia frequently refresh their content for better user experience and SEO performance.
To refine content strategy, Neil recommends testing topics with your community via platforms like X (formerly Twitter), which has low ad costs and doesn’t suppress exposure based on engagement the way LinkedIn does. The best-performing posts can then be repurposed into short-form content for other platforms. From there, long-form content, such as blogs and whitepapers, can be developed and later transformed into gated content, like webinars or lead magnets.
On the topic of social media content, Neil dropped a massive hot take: followers don’t matter. Followers have become a vanity data point. Having a large number of followers doesn’t mean you will get high engagement – in fact, there’s a significant chance you’ll actually see a lower engagement rate. Social platforms, specifically LinkedIn, pay close attention to a post’s engagement both in timeliness and amount. The more engagement a post gets in a short period, the more likely LinkedIn will put it into new people’s news feeds. Like in email marketing, it’s better to have a smaller, highly engaged, more qualified universe.
For B2B fintech marketers, high engagement from a niche audience is more valuable than a large, passive following. Focus on the content your audience wants to consume and expand on it across various mediums and channels.
